


Eclipse

by Chanel_Pirate



Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Genre: Breathplay, Canon Compliant, Disjointed narrative, Dramatic Irony, Exhibitionism, Experimental Form, Gaslighting, Graphic Depictions of Torture, Horror, Insanity, M/M, Oneshot, Phobia Play, Probably Not SSS, Solipsism, Suicidal Ideation, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Everything, Unreliable Narrator, disturbing imagery, drug/alcohol abuse, elements of BDSM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 06:54:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14949741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chanel_Pirate/pseuds/Chanel_Pirate
Summary: So this is grace.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

  

In the empty hours, when he is left only with his thoughts, Daniel finds himself wandering the halls of Brennenburg. There is no purpose to it. He has nothing to find. In sleep terror is a roll of the dice; in waking, it is at least inevitable.

 

His lantern casts shadows that vanish as he approaches, and he is not sure whether to be grateful. Were one to solidify into something from his nightmares, then he might be justified in his foolishness. He knows what is coming for him. This doesn’t stop his heart from quickening, his breath from sticking to his throat, whenever his searching eyes think they find a paradox in the gloom.

 

One night, he looks up and sees a silhouette at the end of a hallway, cut from the moonlight coming in through the windows. He freezes. This is new; this is real; this isn’t in his head.

 

He takes a step forward, fighting his instinct to hide, to scream, to run away. He is tired of being a burden, of being chased, of anticipation without resolution, and he bites back a whimper that may be a moan.

 

He takes a few more steps. The fear is unrelenting.

 

When he thinks he cannot bear it any longer, when he can feel his heartbeat in his throat, and the tremor in his hands makes the lantern-light jar, makes the room itself appear as though it is the cabin of a stormbound vessel—he has to swallow his disappointment when the light touches the silhouette.

 

It is only Alexander. He seems amused. Daniel tries to compose himself, embarrassed.

 

“Can’t sleep?”

 

“I don’t,” Daniel starts, and has to clear his throat, voice cracking. “I apologise. The nightmares, you see. I didn’t mean to disturb you—I hope you are not awake on my account?”

 

Alexander turns back to the window.

 

“Not at all,” he says, falling quiet with a smile Daniel hopes isn’t at his expense. Daniel hopes it would be proper for him to excuse himself, and is about to do so when Alexander speaks again. “I do not seem to tire of this view.” His voice is low. “The darkness seems to paint serenity onto things, don’t you find?”

 

He joins him at the window. From their vantage point all he sees is endless forest. The moon must be visible from the opposite side of the castle. Perhaps he is not as much of a romantic as is the Baron, for he finds it unremarkable.

 

“Very nice,” Daniel says. It sounds perfunctory even to his ears.

 

Alexander titters. “I did say ‘darkness.’” He indicates Daniel’s lantern. “May I?”

 

Daniel hesitates. Would Alexander think less of him? He takes a breath through the taste of copper on his tongue.

 

“Yes.” There is little force to it.

 

Alexander takes the lantern from him, slowly, and snuffs it out, before placing it on the floor.

 

It is not that dark, Daniel notes, not here. Behind him though, anything could be lurking, behind and to the sides, and he tries to feel it, anything, but it doesn’t come. His fingers twitch.

 

“Now?” Alexander asks. Daniel looks, and only sees some cursed trees in the glow of some damnable, invisible moon, seeming to wait with a restraint he might have envied, once. He soon bores of it, and shifts to look upon the Baron. Alexander is not much taller than he, he notices at this distance, and the difference accounted by posture, at that. His aged features are softened in the absence of light. His edges seem to bleed into the dark, shadows blending into the silver of his hair—but that could be the laudanum talking.

 

“Very nice,” Daniel says, and means it.

 

*

 

The following night, he wakes with a different sort of passion, and it is a welcome change. He is not sure what has prompted this, but he decides to follow the urge, and closes a hand around his cock.

 

It has been too long since he has done this.

 

Too warm. He kicks the sheets down, moves on top of them, throws off his nightshirt. He strokes himself, distracted, looking beyond at his rooms. He has left them too well lit. He pauses.

 

It’s going to take too long. He growls, letting go of his cock with contempt. He can’t concentrate. He wants to get himself off, drink laudanum, and go to sleep.

 

He can’t bear this. Any of this. He is a sad little victim of a man who lives in the strength of others, and all he can do is play with himself in lieu of anything useful. He is reduced. He can see it. The lack.

 

He shuts his eyes, and tries to balance his thoughts, even as time-worn fantasies and memories of past encounters, of warmth, fade into visions of half-eaten corpses and images of torture, power. All the ways he has imagined himself dead. Burned, stabbed, hung, shot, holding onto his slit throat, bubbling with blood.

 

His breath hitches as he imagines the agony slicing through him.

 

He folds and twists his nightshirt into a strip of cloth, and ties it tight about his eyes. The darkness is total. The edge of fear scrapes his mind, and he has to watch his breathing. He has to maintain it to be just so, just—

 

He is hard when he touches himself again, bare, blind.

 

He comes to thoughts of Alexander, reaching for him in the dark before the window.

 

*

 

The dungeons puzzle him with their secrets. There is much in these levels that is strange. The proportions do not accord, and are short of being consistent with the amount of space that must be available underneath the castle. The dark, in the split second that they come across it before the light follows, in the spaces pressing in on them, has an absolute quality he has not seen other than in the tomb. It’s as if he could eat it, touch it – or as if it would touch him, rather, devour him whole.

 

His initial reaction was not too different. He doesn’t bother to dwell on whether it should have been.

 

The implements. The prisoners. The wide-open spaces in between. The ancient blood stains. He stamps on his programming, his upbringing, his father’s cane, as he has in many matters in the past. His life will be saved.

 

“Stay close, Daniel,” Alexander mutters, and Daniel hopes he hasn’t heard his rising breath.

 

The other man’s presence beside him burns. He can’t seem to separate the question of what he would like to do to him from the creeping under his skin at their surroundings, at the bloodshed.

 

He thinks he should perhaps be more concerned about it than he is, and pushes back the guilt at the lack of guilt.


	2. Chapter 2

"Alexander, please."

 

"Patience, Daniel."

 

Between them lies a sedate body on a stone altar, painted, hessian sack tied over the head.

 

"Let me, I can... Just, let me do this."

 

"No—not after last time. Watch."

 

A whimper escapes him as Alexander commences, perfunctory as skinning game. His fingers itch to start even as his mind... His mind...

 

The look on Alexander's face is uneasy, even for one elbow-deep in a man's still-breathing entrails.

 

He wants laudanum.

 

"Let me. Alexander."

 

The Baron steps back sharply, all but throwing the dagger down on the altar. The body begins to squirm.

 

"Very well, since you are so insistent."

 

Daniel steps forward.


	3. Chapter 3

Daniel pays more attention to his raiment that evening than may appear reasonable.

 

Despite his hurried departure from London, an ingrained sense of propriety had spurred him to throw some clothing in his trunk to suit dining with a baron. Gruesome daytime activities with said Baron notwithstanding. He had not anticipated any of it, after all.

 

He has not considered his appearance since the Shadow, but he still understands certain basic things. One such thing: that with the blood scrubbed off and his hair combed, he is an impressive man.

 

And he will impress Alexander.

 

He banishes unsavoury thoughts—the screaming, the blood, the stench—and focuses on breathing. He doesn’t need it, but he thinks the corset is a nice touch. It is likely due to the laudanum that his hands do not shake as he finishes tying his cravat, the dark material whisper-soft. It might be for the same reason that this seems like an excellent idea, but with death at his heels, he finds he does not much care.

 

He winks at himself in the looking glass, pleased with the result.

 

Perhaps he can still have this, in the time that is yet allowed him.

 

 

*

 

 

They take drinks in the parlour. Daniel knows his appearance was well received during supper—one does develop a sense for such things. That, and Alexander’s unsubtle, lingering glances. Now, he would just need to advance on his quarry.

 

He has Alexander where he wants him – relaxed, with a glass of wine, in the castle’s eerie quiet. The light is on the comfortable side of dim, but it adds to it, Daniel thinks. His corset aches, and breathing takes most of his concentration. It is not unpleasant, but one way or another, it will have to come off.

 

“More wine?” Alexander offers.

 

“Oh yes, thanks.” Daniel stands and goes to the array of bottles on the sideboard. It is warm in his tailcoat. “Which one for you?”

 

“I’ll continue with more of the same.” He offers Daniel a small quirk of the lips as he approaches the Baron’s side, and pours him a glass. He is slower and more deliberate in his actions than is necessary. “You didn’t have to do that, thank you.”

 

“You are a wonderful host. It is the least I could do,” Daniel says, and as he turns to the sideboard again he catches a glimmer of bewilderment crossing Alexander’s face, and he knows that it is working. He smirks, his back turned to Alexander as he pours another glass for himself. He hopes the Baron is getting a good view of his backside.

 

“You know, it’s funny,” Daniel says, sitting down.

 

“What is?” Alexander says at his glass.

 

“I no longer care for this… Shadow. This fear. It’s dull.” He hopes Alexander calls his bluff.

 

“Interesting.” Alexander takes a long drink. “And why’s that?”

 

“What we do… it’s warding it off for now. It puts a perspective to it.”

 

Alexander remains silent.

 

“And you know what else?”

 

“What else, Daniel?” Alexander asks, looking up at him in an indulgent manner, legs crossed. He is elegant, Daniel thinks, and it makes him want to see how else he can move. How else he could make him move.

 

“In Altstadt,” he starts, “When I made it known that my destination was Brennenburg. The rumours surrounding this place. I had not thought that peasants could summon such creativity!”

 

Alexander hums in amusement. “Quite.”

 

“You don’t seem perturbed by this.”

 

“My family has had to live with rumours for centuries,” he downs the glass, puts it down. “We originated in the other side of the Reich, and came as refugees from the wars in the west. They distrust foreigners here. It has never really improved. I doubt it ever will.”

 

“But surely after all these years—”

 

“A foreigner nonetheless,” Alexander smiles, bone-dry. “It would have been worse were we not Germans.”  

 

Daniel watches the fire, and they fall into companionable silence. He closes his eyes, trying to absorb more warmth, beginning to feel faint. He can feel Alexander watching him.

 

“Such stories, though,” he says into the still air. “An immortal baron, disappearances, misshapen revenants. In one telling, they had you as a vampyre.”

 

“Would that I could live forever. More wine?”

 

“And with the Shadow in pursuit and with that prospect ahead—the stories—I was so afraid.”

 

“And are you afraid of me?” Alexander’s eyes burn.

 

Daniel lets his look run over him, lets a winning smile develop. “No. Not even that I now know that there is a grain of truth to the rumours.”

 

Alexander’s expression freezes. Curious. “I don’t drink their blood, you know. I am old, and someday I will die.”

 

He’s playing it off as a joke. Why? “The rituals, Alexander. I know you couldn’t possibly be a vampyre. And revenants are impossibilities.”

 

“But how do you know? What of the Shadow? Had that existed in your philosophy prior?” He smirks.

 

Well, if that is to be the game, it is one Daniel can play.

 

“I know because… I’ve seen you during the day,” he says and smiles, demure.

 

“Outdoors, for barely any time. Mostly indoors and underground. What else?”

 

Daniel is astonished that Alexander is playing along.

 

“I can see your reflection as we speak.”

 

“The folklore is inconsistent on this point. Try again.”

 

Daniel sits back, extending the arch of his back as far as the corset would allow, relishing his words—and his choice in them—before they pass his lips. “Because I know your hunger would have claimed me by now.”

 

Alexander’s smile is a rictus. Daniel can see his grip on the armrest tightening. “I could be feeding on the prisoners.”

 

He wants to laugh. “Come, now. There is not a chance you are anything but human.”

 

Alexander fidgets. “To what heights can one aspire beyond that which is human, after all?”

 

Daniel decides to show some mercy. “On that note. I will soon retire.”

 

Alexander nods, standing. “We have much ahead of us, tomorrow.”

 

“I may have some laudanum first,” he says, himself standing, and procuring a vial from his waistcoat. He briefly thinks of the Amnesia potion they had used, earlier. Such a sweet colour, such terrifying effects. “Might I offer you some?”

 

“I will have to decline,” Alexander says. He moves to relight a candle. “It is not among my vices.”

 

Daniel moves. When the Baron turns, he is right before him, at a less than polite distance.

 

“So what are your vices?”

 

His smile as he takes a sip of the laudanum is predatory. Alexander swallows.

 

Perhaps he is not so merciful.

 

Alexander is still, to the point that Daniel is quite sure he is holding his breath. “Such that accumulate over a lifetime.”

 

“The offer remains open,” Daniel says and turns to leave with a nod of his head.

 

He is almost to the door, his breathing still controlled, light-headed, somewhere between disappointment and elation.

 

“Daniel?”

 

He turns, hope rising in his chest. Alexander’s face is carefully schooled, neutral—but he is betrayed by his eyes, which rake in a rough caress over Daniel, over his body, over his lips.

 

“Good night.”

 

Daniel blinks, and wants to throttle him, among other things.

 

“Good night.”

 

When he is in his rooms once more, he removes his fine clothes with a lack of care, and undoes the stays and ties on the torture device about his waist in record haste.

 

The moment of release from that whalebone prison, that first full breath, cannot be matched. Well, he thinks, it can. But not tonight.

 

He throws the corset aside in disgust.

 

He falls asleep tracing the sensitive red marks imprinted on his torso, ignoring his hard cock, feeling spiteful as he thinks of Alexander.

 

He resents the light.

 

 

*

 

 

The nightmares do not abate.

  
  
The Shadow creeps into all the corners of his unwaking world—it whispers to him through a river of putrescence, in a forest of burned flesh. In the forest Daniel sees a woodsman, masked; he splits logs of meat with vigour. His axe is rusted black, jagged and blunt.

  
For some reason, Daniel moves closer—and sees that the woodsman is not masked but faceless, the planes smooth, uncanny. The figure pauses in its actions to look up at him.

  
  
He freezes. Somehow, it seems to follow him with non-existent eyes. The Shadow roars around them. Daniel starts running, and the woodsman gives chase. He can taste blood—he must not be caught under any circumstances—he falls, and turning to face his death, he sees—

  
  
"Daniel?"

  
  
He wakes with a gasp, and sees Alexander. He makes an undignified noise that might have been a question, and does his best to calm himself, to still his heaving chest, as he sits up in bed.

  
  
Alexander moves nearer, and this should be rather more awkward for both of them. He stops at the foot of the bed. "Still having nightmares, I see."

  
  
"Yes, I can't shake them," Daniel says, and he wishes he could disappear. Why is Alexander here? How can he have heard him? Why won't he let him suffer in peace? At least the lights are still on. "They come every night."

  
  
"We'll put a stop to them. You'll see."

  
  
The Baron is trying to be reassuring, but Daniel fails to see how the rituals can do anything about the nightmares.

  
  
There's something else, there, in Alexander's tone, and Daniel snaps into self-awareness as his breathing returns to normal. He is in disarray, his hair wild and curled about his shoulders. His nightshirt is twisted, clinging to him with sweat, his collarbones exposed. The sheets, half-thrown off, uncover a bare leg. Best of all, he is half-hard from sleep.

  
  
He can't have arranged this any better were he sitting for an artist of the most improper sort. His annoyance dissipates. He pushes his hair out of his face, languid, his nightshirt slipping further.

  
"How do you suggest we do that?" he says, and he does not miss the way Alexander looks at him then, worshipful. "I can see how the rituals might affect the Shadow. But what of me? How can they but add to—”

 

“Have you taken laudanum tonight?”

 

“You’ve watched me do it,” he says, stretching. The sheet falls further down his torso.

 

“Fine,” Alexander grips the bedpost as he moves across to the bedside, “Have you any suggestions, in that case?”

 

“Nothing comes to mind.”

 

He can feel Alexander’s uncertainty. Daniel thinks he might have enjoyed the situation more were he unencumbered by the pursuing terror that wanted to wear his skin. He shivers. It would not do to think on that now. He forces his thoughts instead to the man before him and the imminent prospects he presents, promises of being held down and touched everywhere, how warm he would be—oh, but were Alexander to see his thoughts, so close now.

 

“The hour is late,” the Baron says, sudden, his posture straightening, seeming to shake himself. “Hopefully your sleep for tonight will be disturbed no longer. We have twofold work tomorrow. Perhaps that will remedy what ails you.”

 

With a nod, he sweeps out of the room. Daniel remains fixed in his position, staring at the door as it closes.

 

He knows it is childish, but he throws a pillow at it nevertheless, and wraps himself in cravings once more.

 

 

*

 

 

There is something almost defiant, Daniel thinks, in the way that Alexander meets his eyes the next day. Challenging.

 

He assists as is expected of him. The brazen bull bellows. The iron maiden slams. He chokes on the smells, as usual, on mantras of, this is necessary, remember the Inner Sanctum, remember, and finds something better to concern himself with in the accidental touches when Alexander passes him something, in the systematic rigour of the tasks.

 

The darkness waits, just beyond his vision. The fear he pretends to have cast aside curls, a sleeping thing within him, anticipating his fall.

 

So he plays his part, as Alexander commands the proceedings as the old patriarch that he is, even as Daniel dreams of deliverance in the light, in those arms that cut and flay and crush—

 

He squeezes his eyes shut.

 

Alexander brings another prisoner through, ripping the cloth covering off his head as he tosses him onto the floor before them.

 

Daniel finds sustenance in the cruelty. He drinks down the image of himself, blindfolded and helpless before the Baron, as he would nectar from whatever dead gods.

 

 

*

 

 

When he next gets a moment to himself, Daniel goes for a walk in the grounds. It is in all likelihood less than two hours to dusk, and he is grateful for the fresh hillside air. The forest stretches into the horizon, dark and eldritch. Daniel knows it will be no barrier against the Shadow, when it comes. ~~~~

He sits under a tree. His work clothes are blood-stained and vile, and the smell taints that of the earth. He enjoys the lingering late-summer warmth while he can.

 

The torture. It is far too simple. It shouldn’t be. Yet, when Alexander instructs him in that steel-and-silk voice… if he is honest, he can’t find too much in himself that regrets. Not when it means he gains days of life. Wretched as his life has been. He is frightened by what does not frighten him: piles of bodies, and bones.

 

Some sort of small native falcon catches his eye. It is unassuming, but this does not mitigate the sharpness of its claws and beak, or the cruelty in its yellow glare. It is perched on a tree branch, across from him. It tilts its head, hearing something. It waits.

 

In the curious tilt of the head, Daniel is reminded of Hazel. He pushes it down. He cannot think of her. He has no right, just as he has no right to any of his past. Since leaving home, he has always lived as though only the future existed, giving no thought to his precedents; now that his future is put to question, he can only think of the might-have-beens—were he different, in disposition, in inclination, in humour.

 

There is peace, he thinks, almost a cosmic harmony, in the prisoners’ eyes, after they are dosed with Amnesia. Almost as though they are a book completed and sealed. A genesis.

 

The breeze picks up, and it bites. The falcon dives towards its prey in one smooth, silent, motion. Daniel barely sees it leave. He hears something crunch, not far off, and is glad that at least one living creature in Brennenburg can get what it wants.

 

He gets up, surrounded by ancestral stone and ancient trees for miles, and knows that he is lost in time and space.

 

 

*

 

The smell of burning flesh reminds him that it has been a long while since he has last eaten.

 

He turns away from the brazen bull and Alexander both, faint. He props himself against the wall, uncaring of the damp on his clothes. The room spins around him. He buries his head in his arm, and he may be retching.

 

There is a hand on his shoulder, but he can’t—it won’t—

 

He cannot discern Alexander’s face. He is faceless, and the taste of blood and the smell of meat threaten to bury him. He screams and scurries away—trying to—for he must not be caught by the woodsman, the woodsman—his back is against the wall, and he drops down, looking for anything he could use to defend himself, and his hand closes around a smooth stone—

 

His vision goes black for a moment, and he hears more screaming, more, mixing with that of the bull—

 

He blinks, or rather, feels someone blink. He cannot stop shivering, there on the cold, damp floor. And yet he sees a man on the floor below that this is happening to, and a silver-haired man beside him—Alexander kneels before him—there is a hand on his shoulder again. There is another, holding something, a shard of something, it can’t be—

 

“You have to get rid of it, it has to, go back, it needs—”

 

“Daniel!”

 

“I’m—not—it won’t —”

 

He jerks, feeling his head hit the wall, and the spinning won’t stop.

 

He finds himself lying on a sofa in an unfamiliar study. There is a wet cloth on his forehead.

 

He turns his head, wincing as he does. Alexander is right beside him, pale. He opens his mouth to ask, but his voice is a croak.

 

“You lost consciousness.”

 

He tries to form words, mouth opening and closing. His mind and his body are not co-operating.

 

“It was the Shadow,” he attempts.

 

Matter seems sensitive to him; the still air seems to press down upon his face, and everything he sees seems sharpened—that is how he explains to himself how he feels Alexander’s acute helplessness as his own, can sense it in his impassive face, can catch the bare hint in his eyes.

 

Daniel turns his face back to the ceiling, and shuts his eyes in exhaustion.

 

“You are still here,” he breathes, falling asleep.

 

A hand removes the cloth from his face, brushes his hair aside, gentle.

 

“Yes.”

 

He has a vague memory of strong arms.

 

 

*

 

 

“You should rest.”

 

“I’m fine, thank you,” Daniel says, already tiring of the argument. He is here more out of not wanting to leave Alexander’s side.

 

Alexander closes the cell door as they leave it, having forced a prisoner to drink Amnesia.

 

“You have just had a minor seizure, Daniel.”

 

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

 

Alexander sizes him up for a long moment. The man is unduly cautious with him—he puts it down to concern. The alternative—that Alexander is afraid of him—is too ridiculous to countenance.

 

He begins to turn away, and Alexander catches him with a hand on his shoulder.

 

“What would you rather we called it?”

 

Daniel stares him down, allowing a spike of anger to run through him. He holds no illusions as to what is happening, the Shadow haunting his every move—how can Alexander imagine he is so stupid as to think otherwise?

 

“Seems that I wouldn’t know,” he snaps. Alexander raises an eyebrow.

 

They don’t speak of it again.

 

Daniel doesn’t miss the way Alexander makes sure the rooms they work in are well-lit. He knows it is meant to be a kindness, yet all it does is throw the blood into sharper relief against stone.

 

That night, it rains. The moon is just short of full. Daniel stands outside in the gardens, watching the last of the Damascus roses, as though they will tell him all the castle’s secrets if he looks hard enough.

 

He is soaked when he goes back inside.

 

 

*

 

 

It is late enough to be early.

  
  
Daniel, unable to sleep for fear of waking, wanders. The halls are more familiar now, less secretive, and he is disconcerted by the lack of strange shapes. At this hour, the moon is at such an angle as to shine in through the windows, stripping the stone bare.

  
  
He considers snuffing out his lantern, to spite himself. He had managed, before. But would it be spite? He doesn’t know. He walks.

  
  
He looks up to see the familiar silhouette. Same window. It seems he is not the only one with nocturnal habits. He puts out the lantern before Alexander acknowledges him. He takes a deep breath and moves ahead. He feels that he may be in control of it, tonight—as far as one can control a life-long tendency. He is emboldened by the Shadow’s earlier actions, for all the good that may do.

  
  
“Fancy seeing you here again.”

  
  
“Now what are the odds?” Alexander deadpans, turns his head to him. “No need of the light tonight?”

  
  
He does his best to focus on the moon. He hums, noncommittal, setting his lantern down on the floor, stepping past it.

  
  
"Forgive me. You had mentioned you were afraid of the dark.”

  
  
Something in Alexander’s posture is betraying him.

  
  
"Less that," Daniel grits out. "More, the unknown within it. The irrational."

  
  
"Such that we are dealing with."

  
  
He nods. "It worsens when I am alone. And in the unknown."

  
  
"So you trust me?" Alexander faces him, leaning his side against the window.

  
  
Daniel keeps his eyes forward. "I mean no offence, but I don't see that I have an alternative."

  
  
"I didn't take you for a sceptic." He can hear his smile.

  
  
"Even Socrates would occasionally practise scepticism," Daniel says, almost forgetting everything but the moon.

 

“And Socrates was forced to take hemlock."

 

Daniel turns to him in amusement, about to speak. His voice dies in his throat when he sees how close they are.

 

Alexander is sombre when Daniel looks at him.

 

“But earlier…” Alexander murmurs. He brushes hair away from Daniel’s face, his hand pausing for a moment too long on the back of his head. “How do you fare?”

 

Daniel can’t help himself. He laughs. In the dim silence, the sound is ugly, and there is nothing to impede the edges of madness.

 

“I would be remiss in saying that all is well, my friend,” Daniel says when he finds himself again, wiping away tears. He faces the window. “There is no lie in saying that I have seen better days.”

 

Alexander nods, careful. He is still turned to Daniel—but the distance has returned.

 

Daniel rests his forehead on the window. His breath throws condensation on to the glass. “Were you married?”

 

For a while, Alexander does not answer, and Daniel considers taking his leave. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Alexander examining him, as he would a specimen. “A very long time ago. Why do you ask?”

 

“You seem the sort to like having someone to look after,” Daniel says, looking up at him. They are close again.

 

Alexander makes a sound that is less than halfway to a laugh. He runs the backs of his fingers down his cheek, and Daniel’s breath catches in his throat. “And you seem like the sort who wants to know the answer to everything under the sun.”

 

“And the moon,” Daniel adds. He angles his face into Alexander’s touch, but the Baron has already moved his hand back to his side. This awakens him, snapping Daniel to attention, and he straightens. “And how do you fare?” he asks, his tone challenging.

 

“Daniel…” Alexander shakes his head.

 

His composure slips into ire, and he attempts to smother his prior anticipation. Tearing his eyes away from the other man, Daniel turns away and back whence he came. He advances a few steps, and stops.

 

The darkness is all the darker for his eyes having adjusted to the sky. His heart quickens, and in the stillness he forgets to breathe. He has left his lantern behind. The dark seems to press in on him, pushing him back to where Alexander stands somewhere behind him, quiet.

 

He turns to take the three strides back to Alexander, pushes him against the window, and kisses him.

 

He tastes the little surprised noise he makes. He tastes the moment Alexander melts.

 

Alexander’s hands on his face when he kisses him back, the unexpected sweetness of his touch, his lips.

 

It’s too much. He crowds Alexander further, one hand winding tighter in his hair, the other gripping a sharp hipbone. He pulls back to look at him, silhouetted there against the sky once more. He doesn’t want to dwell on what he sees in his eyes.

 

The dark crawls at his back, but it cannot touch him now.

 

Alexander moves to kiss him again. Daniel’s grip on his hair tightens, and he moves down to Alexander’s neck before their lips can meet. Alexander shivers, a low moan escaping him.

 

His fingers dig into Daniel’s back. Daniel moves his hand to the front of his trousers, to undo the buttons there, to feel him, he has to feel him. He raises his head to kiss the man’s jaw.

 

“Why don’t we—” Alexander gasps, trying to extricate himself even as he pushes in to his teasing hand, “Why don’t we take this to my rooms.”

 

Daniel cages him in then, forearm propped against the glass, and he can feel himself begin to lose his mind as he growls into the other man’s mouth, as he claws at the fastenings on his front.

 

“No. Here.”

 

Alexander mutters something that may be a curse, and himself makes short work of Daniel’s trousers, hand moving directly to grip his erection.

 

“Well, well.”

 

“Want—”

 

Daniel bucks into his hand, presses into him further, as if he can crawl under his skin if he tries hard enough. Alexander bites at his lips as Daniel finally gets his hand on his cock. He kisses him, hard, and can’t help but lose the rhythm as he does—because Alexander is there, and he wants him, and now he will have him.

 

He breaks away, and kisses Alexander’s jaw, his neck, and makes to go down, further, but Alexander stills him with a soft touch to the shoulder, pulling him back up.

 

“Stay. I want to kiss you.”

 

And so Daniel does, turning them so his back is to the window. He kisses him until all he can do is pant, the darkness banished by the moon and Alexander’s eyes.

 

 

*

 

The next day, Alexander is collected. His eyes betray nothing, and his hands do not shake even as they cut through living men.

  
  
To external eyes, it would appear as though nothing has changed between them. But Daniel has attuned himself to nothing but the Baron in previous weeks, and he can see everything. He can seem as stern as he wishes, Daniel thinks, but he knows what the Baron looks like pressed face-first against the glass, breath misting, whimpering as his hands attempt to seek purchase on Daniel.

  
  
Alexander gives him direct instruction, as always. He does not hold back criticism, as ever. He is a professional in evisceration, clinical in burning, elegant in butchering.

  
Yet it is in those moments in between, when Daniel imagines the Baron thinks he is too beside himself to notice—and really, he should know better, Daniel thinks, for where else would he possibly divert his eyes?—it is in those moments that he sees his severe face softening at the sight of him, that he registers a tone to his voice he wouldn't use with anyone else, and Daniel basks in it.

  
And in those moments, Daniel knows what a terrible thing this is that is happening, what a terrible idea this is, and he can see that Alexander realises this too.

  
The Shadow waits.


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

 

Alexander asks him to fetch a saw from the room containing the brazen bull. It is when he reaches the room that he realises that this is his first time there since he has had his strange episode.

  
  
The bull looms. He tries not to think of a legend he’d read, that its inventor had been thrown inside it by a despot, to test its use. He walks around it to retrieve the saw. It is rusted, orange.

  
  
On the way back, he passes his eyes over where he had—fainted—it can’t have been a seizure, he would have been more poorly afterward, surely. At the wall’s base, he sees—

  
  
No, it can’t be. He narrows his eyes.

  
  
Alexander must be waiting for him. Let him.

  
He walks closer. What he had previously assumed to be a stone, blending into the wall—there is an active resistance against his mind as he attempts to focus on it. It distorts the room.

  
His mind won’t grasp it.

 

He tries.

 

It slips through.

  
  
Daniel stares at his boot where it meets the flagstone, then at the saw in his hand. He can’t remember why he came in. When he blinks, he sees a blue glow, and he shivers.

  
  
Fear chases him from the room. His walk is brisk. He hopes Alexander doesn’t notice.

 

 

*

 

 

Torchlight harshens the corridors, and wherever he looks stone bleeds into stone. Underground, the air twists about his neck, the damp rot never far away. No water. Here, there is only stone, and dying flame, with only cells in between.

 

If he strains his imagination, the smell almost takes him to riverside summers, water drops on oars. Bankside daffodils feeding on the loam, where here orchids drink blood. Then, everything that had ever existed and everything that will exist henceforth had been within several paces’ reach from university gates. How he had run his hands over the spines of countless books, where now he breaks the spines of men.

 

How many faceless men have shared his bed, how many faceless men he has killed, and now Alexander whispers to him in the night. How darkness hides her blade.

 

All is dust.

 

He walks, and his destination is not forthcoming. The corridor is harshened stone, bleeding. He walks and the corridor twists. The air tightens about his neck. He walks and the stone is narrow, narrower, and perhaps he should turn back. He is beyond the cells, and where he has just been able to stretch his arm to the side, there is burnt stone, narrow. He will not look back. His shoulders graze the wall and still he will not turn, and when he checks behind himself the corridor has closed in, and he cannot turn. Torchlight singes his vision.

 

He cannot move in any direction. He cannot breathe.

 

Something sounds, rhythmic, mechanical—approaching. He may not blink, for all about him is stone, noose-like about his neck. He may only see in the lack of dark’s mercy, in the torchlight.

 

The pulses continue, battering the ground, and he feels the sound in his feet. He knows he is waiting. He fixes his eyes on torch’s wood, and thinks of runes aglow on men. He thinks of gods hanging from yew, of the sacrifice in the easy splitting of rune-painted skin, of burning tombs and broken fingernails, and would that he could burn if he could be plucked out and hung before the sun, perfect.

 

He knows. When the woodsman comes, all at once from the source of the infinite, as faceless as he­, he knows, and he will not close his eyes to the axe’s rusted bluntness against his dry-snapping spine. There is no more water. There is nothing left to do and nowhere left to go.

 

When the woodsman comes, he will have been completed, and finally he will be cut down.

 

 

*

 

 

He watches Alexander work his subtle slaughter on a prisoner. He watches Alexander’s body, and thinks of how tightly coiled it feels beneath his hands.

 

He thinks of how easy it would be to run him through, and crush his knowing eyes in his fists as he steals his dying breath with his lips.

 

 

*

 

 

There is no dark or light, only empty space and thunder in his ear.

 

He thinks of roses.


	5. Chapter 5

*

 

Laudanum.

 

*


	6. Chapter 6

He is left to himself in his rooms. As alone as he can be, these days—  
  
The Shadow is quiet.  
  
Daniel can hear its absence like screams. It rends him as he rends the prisoners, threatening to drown him with its lack.  
  
He knows it is gearing itself for the final approach.  
  
He knows why Alexander sometimes seems cautious of him. The Shadow must be within him. That must be the reason he thirsts for their blood, to save himself; that must be the reason Alexander has been careful with how much he revealed of the process.  
  
It is the Shadow—not him. Never him.  
  
And it must be the Shadow within him that is so excited by the dark, he thinks as he changes his clothes—the dark that has plagued him all his life, the dark which steals his breath. The dark which makes him want to keep Alexander waiting in the parlour, to have some time to himself, time to think, to drink laudanum, time to touch himself.  
  
It must be the Shadow.  
  
But he remembers Alexander's voice, compelling, and rises. He has an appointment to keep.

 

 

*

 

 

“You are not present,” Alexander says.

 

Daniel turns from the looking glass above the sideboard. He watches the Baron, legs crossed in the armchair by the fire. He fixates on Alexander’s hands, teasing the stem of his wineglass.

 

“There is not much clarity to be found in the situation.” His eyes meet those of his reflection once more.

 

Time contracts, and when he blinks, Alexander is behind him.

 

“Daniel.”

 

His teeth grind of their own volition. He has worn the corset once more, and between that and the wine, his light-headedness has turned maudlin.

 

He breathes as deep as he is able, and scans Alexander’s reflection. Something in his appearance that night makes him want to leave scratches all over his skin.

 

“I don’t,” he tries. “I’m not—there’s nothing left. Nothing.”

 

He realises he is weeping when Alexander reaches over his shoulder to brush a tear away, and tuck his hair behind his ear. He feels his stomach against his back, his arms wrapping about his waist. He cannot bear to see their embrace. He closes his eyes, leans his head back against Alexander’s shoulder, and tries to seize the sublimity of the present.

 

An eternity soon passes.

 

“Where do you find clarity?” Alexander says, soft. His forearms tighten, digging along the top edge of his corset through his shirt and waistcoat.

 

Daniel takes a shuddering breath, opening his eyes, and he is not prepared for the way that Alexander is looking at him, lips parted. He reaches a hand back to pull the tie out of Alexander’s hair, and relishes in watching Alexander follow the motion in the looking glass. He becomes aware of how his arse is pushing into Alexander’s front. He pauses until Alexander meets his eyes in the mirror.

 

“Sex.”

 

He draws the word out, and Alexander’s breath hitches. He dips his head down to kiss Daniel’s neck, as his hands move to unbutton clothes, and Daniel watches, leisurely, pulling at Alexander’s freed hair as he moves his arm back down.

 

“How fortunate, then,” Alexander murmurs into his ear, nipping at the shell, “that in this we are also alike.”

 

Daniel hums, and lets Alexander undress him, allowing himself to do nothing but focus on his roaming hands and mouth. It’s real. He’s in the room. His smile widens once Alexander has removed his shirt. The Baron pauses, running a finger down whalebone.

 

“I suspected as much, but in good faith I cannot imagine that you stopped to pack such—”

 

Daniel laughs, truly, perhaps for the first time in his life. “What, man, is propriety not caned into one in Prussia as it is in England? I had packed to dine with nobility.”

 

Alexander blinks slowly, taking in the sight of Daniel in the looking glass, and for a moment he appears drunk. Then, he finishes unbuttoning Daniel’s trousers in haste, pushing them down past his knees, forcing Daniel to hastily kick them off together with his shoes, or fall over. He is left wearing nothing but the corset, and the unnatural contour of his waist.

 

“Heavens, Daniel,” Alexander says, breathless, as he runs his fingers up the underside of Daniel’s half-hard cock, teasing. “Had I not known better, I would think you were trying to kill me.”

 

Daniel’s jaw hurts. “Perhaps I am.”

 

Alexander draws his arm back, and does not move his gaze. “Look at you.”

 

Yes, Daniel confirms, he is a sentimental fool, as he has suspected. “Why are you still dressed?”

 

“How did you get into that yourself?” Alexander ignores him.

 

“A gentleman can always find how to dress himself in a suitable manner. Don’t you know?”

 

Alexander’s hand traces the stark line of his back and shoulders, and moves around to run up his chest. “I’m afraid the fashions were quite different when I was a young man.” He teases Daniel’s nipple, and makes a sound of triumph when Daniel’s eyelids flutter. Daniel can hardly breathe. He moans when Alexander leans in to kiss his neck again. “And besides,” he speaks into his skin, breath warm, “I’m afraid I only ever learned to take them off.”

 

Daniel begins to roll his eyes at this, but stops at the sight of Alexander’s hand, easily larger than his waist in its current state, slipping around towards the stays of his corset, beginning to undo the tie, one-handed and—

 

Instead of the relief, the coming-loose, he pulls it tighter, unrelenting. Daniel gasps for a breath that won’t come, and all at once he is painfully hard, his hands grasping at Alexander’s back behind him.

 

“My, isn’t that curious.” Daniel can feel his clothed erection, digging into him, and he would whimper if he could. “I had thought you to be fascinating, but the more I discover of your mind,” his hand tightens further, somehow, stronger than should be possible, and the pain is indescribable as his spine jars, tears coming unbidden, his hips jerking, seeking, needing, but there is no relief, no breath, “the more of a compulsion you become.”

 

Alexander’s breath rattles in his ear, and in the mirror Daniel watches his free hand stroking his flailing hip, teasing around his cock, and it should not be beautiful, not after everything, and yet. He can feel the Baron bucking into him, still clothed and as hard as he, all subtlety gone.

 

Daniel’s mouth moves, ineffectual, his cock aching, his vision going black, and everything begins to fade, luxurious.

 

Then, Alexander lets go.

 

He is seized by the breath’s ecstasy, and he could cry from joy or lust, but before he is allowed to fully draw it into his lungs, to extend his abused ribcage—before Alexander has even let go of the corset entirely—the Baron is on his knees before him, hands digging into his arse as he swallows down his cock, and Daniel thrusts, unable to complete that first breath, unable to stop sliding into that warmth, and he has only to thrust several times before he comes into Alexander’s mouth with hoarse sobs, knees shaking.

 

He is dizzy when he manages to finally draw a full breath, and he sinks to the floor, lying down, unceremonious.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

 

Alexander laughs.

 

The room spins around him as he breathes. He focuses on the rise and fall of his chest. The loosened corset digs into the small of his back. He may sleep for centuries. He blinks back to himself, and sluggish, turns his head to Alexander, who has moved to sit beside him.

 

“Do you need…?”

 

“That will be fine,” Alexander says, eyes closed, content. “I took care of it.”

 

At this, Daniel notices the wetness at Alexander’s front. He smirks.

 

The Baron strokes his hair, massaging his scalp. “The sight of you, Daniel.”

 

Daniel falls asleep right there on the floor, his last waking thought being the stark realisation, clear as though he had seen it in the orb’s refection, that this will end with both of them dead at each other’s hand.

 

 

*

 

 

And then he is back to cutting and flaying, sawing and impaling, as they both descend on these pitiful human animals to draw their blood, desperate as scavengers availing themselves on weeks-dead carrion, hungry jackals screaming ugly in a drought, and he wonders if he will ever rise from the ash of it, this filth.

 

And then, Alexander is always there, obliging, whenever he wants it, and it’s the only thing that matters, during a ritual when Daniel sees something in the Baron’s concentration that he wants to gorge on, as he rolls the prisoner on the slab onto the floor, as he throws Alexander onto it and holds him down with his body weight as he ruts at him, as they get covered in glowing paint, as Alexander moans amidst gasps of, “We shouldn’t,”—“We shouldn’t,” as though it’s another incantation, another ritual—

 

As the prisoner weeps—

 

Or when Alexander, in a rare moment of lost composure, pins him to the morgue wall with one hand tight about his neck, the other teasing a slow rhythm up and down his cock, agonising, a deliberate form of torture edged with spite, just for Daniel, and he is only allowed to come when he begs, Alexander making him pronounce the words clearly although he is suffocating—

 

And Alexander is always so tender with him, so tender it aches, and never more so than when he bites down into the bruised skin of Daniel’s neck as he screams Alexander’s name.

 

 

*

 

 

“I don’t think we should take leave of ourselves while we are working anymore,” Alexander says, as he turns back to the prisoner bound to the wheel. He must have correctly identified the gleam that appeared in Daniel’s eye. “It is unbecoming.”

 

Five minutes later, he is slumped and cursing in a chair in the corner, all decorum laid aside as Daniel takes him mercilessly with his mouth.

 

It is most becoming.

 

 

*

 

 

They are in the Baron’s study above the transept, Alexander announcing that he must consult a particular text in order to refine the rituals.

 

His dislike of these levels, disturbing in their discordant nature, has ebbed into boredom. At least it’s not the Sanctum, today. He fusses with a mannequin clothed in some manner of military or ceremonial dress that reminds him of North Africa—though it might as well originate from the Near East. He thinks through the taxonomies known to him, trying to determine a likely provenance. He remembers how much Brennenburg and its contents had excited him as an archaeologist, at first. It was not long ago by any measure, yet it may as well have been another lifetime.

 

Growing bored of this, too, he daydreams instead of Algerian men, with their alluring dark eyes, which leads him to think of how Alexander looks when he comes. He runs his eyes over the man at his desk, poring over some ancient, dusty tome as though it contains some essential secret of the universe. Then again, perhaps it does. He wonders if Alexander would notice were he to remove all his clothes and lie naked before him.

 

He shifts a statuette of a lion from a bookshelf to read the Latin title behind it for the tenth time—some obscure text by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa.

 

“Alexander,” he whines.

 

“Almost done,” Alexander says, without looking up. Daniel can hear the smile in his voice. He walks over to stand behind him, and places his hands on his shoulders, massaging.

 

Alexander sighs, setting the book down on the desk, still open. He relaxes into Daniel’s hands, leaning back into his body, looking up at him, soft, with something Daniel will only identify later, and too late.

 

Thinking that it has been an hour or so since he has had some laudanum, Daniel moves a hand upwards, stroking Alexander’s scalp. The man’s eyes flutter shut. It is intimate, shockingly so, and Daniel is unsettled. He tries to glean the contents of the book, to little success.

 

“It won’t be long, now,” Alexander murmurs. Daniel almost startles; he had appeared to be on the edge of sleep. He notices the tell-tale signs of exhaustion on the man.

 

“Until the Shadow comes? Or until we can banish it for good?” Daniel says, resuming his movements.

 

“You don’t seem to be too concerned with either outcome.”

 

Daniel thinks for a moment, shrugs. “I don’t know what to think.”

 

They fall into silence. Alexander arches into him.

 

“You know what will happen, if we don’t do what we must?”

 

At this, anger curls into Daniel’s vision, and he drops his hands.

 

“I may know very little of such matters,” he starts, and he cannot remember intending to raise his voice. “And I try to understand what I am being shown. But when I begin to grasp it, really grasp it, I only see the bodies of those that have been claimed, torn, ripped apart, inside out, and I think, that may very well be us —”

 

Alexander stands, moves close to him, cups his face in his hands. “I think you are unclear, in your mind. As to what we are doing, as to what frightens you—”

 

“I thought,” Daniel snapped, stepping back, “That we were here for you to consult something of utmost importance, unless you simply wanted some solace from me, in which case, I shall take my leave.” He makes to do so. In any case, the urge for laudanum is only increasing.

 

“Daniel,” and Alexander has the temerity to sound amused, stopping Daniel in his tracks. “Why would you possibly think that? Although it is true that your attentions have been most fervent, and I am but an old man.”

 

Something in the room shifts. Daniel runs his tongue over his teeth, and he might scream. He turns to advance on Alexander, he knows not with what intention, and the older man steps back, uncertain, until Daniel has Alexander crowded against a bookcase.

 

“Is that a complaint?” he growls, lips brushing against the Baron’s.

 

“Do we have the time to find out?” Alexander breathes, hands tightening on his waist.

 

Daniel pulls away, moving to the door. Something pricks at him, behind the eyes. “Dead men never do. Let’s away from here.”

 

They only make it as far as the nave, pushing, pulling at clothes, Alexander’s legs closing about his waist, on a table in the corner, beside an alcove where that strange corpse hangs. Daniel has never asked about it, though he does think it strange that Alexander seems to smirk at it from between his arms.

 

 

*

 

 

Alexander, above him, trapping his cock underneath his body, rutting him sore as he strokes himself to completion, and all Daniel can do is thrust upwards against him, helpless, ineffectual, caught between his thighs.

 

And when Alexander is finished, Daniel’s chest covered in his come, he is ruthless in drawing it out, tyranny in his smile, thriving in the chaos of Daniel’s cries, until the only memory of fear that Daniel has left is that he will not be allowed to come.

 

But Alexander is merciful.

 


	7. Chapter 7

When Daniel next ventures out of the castle, he startles at the near-darkness. The sun had set earlier than he has expected, in the approach to autumn. He has not been alone a moment in the last days.

 

He reaches the edge of the forest and stares into the black, thinking of nothing. There is a faint smell of pine and rot. He has not brought a lantern. Something on the ground nearby catches his sight, a dark clump rustling against grass. He goes to inspect it. When he looks down, he sees a falcon, wingspan extended, belly up, ripped open, gore spilling around it as a wildcat feeds on it. The falcon’s eyes are open, its yellow glare noble. It blinks at him with a clear eyelid, tilting its head at him. It knows it is being eaten alive.

 

He stamps on the ground and hisses, and the wildcat looks up in alarm and flees. One of the falcon’s wings twitch in a gesture that Daniel reads as supplication. Gratitude. Its beak opens and shuts, but it is futile.

 

Daniel kneels beside it. He searches its eyes, marvelling at the life he finds beating there, even now.

 

He picks up a rock and smashes its skull.

 

He does not avert his eyes.

 

So this is grace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

As always, there is laudanum.

 

 

*

 

 

He grips the Damascus rose with such force that blood runs down his arm, yet blood is always the same, running along the unravelling seams of reality.

 

 

*

 

 

There is no beauty in it, he thinks, not in this, not in prisoners sawn in half, not in the vitae that scalds clear from them.

 

 

*

 

 

As his eyes burn looking at the orb, as they would from looking at the sun

 

 

*

 

 

His hands wrap around entrails, and

 

it has always been him, and never the Shadow—

 

 

*

 

 

Alexander pulls away, and he must know,

 

know how it would feel to fuck him

 

as he dies below him, torn,

 

 

*

 

 

Has he slept? Alexander asks, and Daniel laughs and laughs as the woodsman shakes his head.

 

 

*

 

 

Laudanum—the vial won’t open, so he breaks it open on his knuckles, and licks it from the broken glass.

 

 

*

 

 

But when he screams, Alexander holds him, rocking him, and there are tears that are not his own on his face.

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

He traces the contours of his face in the looking glass, leaving marks upon it, fingerprints, not dissimilar from the ones about his neck.

 

“How soon?” he says, voice soft in his candlelit rooms. Alexander sits on the edge of the bed, looking perturbed.

 

“The definitive moment is not far upon us, I should say.”

 

“Was that not the last prisoner today?” He presses down harder on the looking glass. He thinks of how he had put so much care into his appearance, for Alexander. Pathetic.

 

“Yes. But we can—”

 

Daniel titters. “It will come. We will die.”

 

Alexander stands, and Daniel turns to meet him in the middle.

 

“We will, as all men must. But not now,” Alexander says, and embraces him. Daniel freezes. He wants to return it, to wrap his arms around him, but he pushes him away, without force.

 

“I don’t understand,” he says, and it is hollow.

 

“You said you trusted me. I need you to trust me,” Alexander says, voice rising, and Daniel can see his emotions as he attempts to swallow them down.

 

Daniel walks across the room to sit on the edge of the bed. He buries his head in his hands.

 

“I don’t think I ha—none of this is real. It can’t be.”

 

When he looks up after a few minutes, Alexander is standing before him, eyes bright.

 

“Do you trust me? Daniel,” he pleads. Daniel can only laugh, uncontrolled.

 

Alexander frowns.

 

“If there is a joke, perhaps you might share it with me, that I may also laugh,” Alexander snaps.

 

Daniel continues laughing, rolling his neck, bruises aching, and he can’t stop. “It is pitiful. We are pitiful. This is the joke. Life is.”

 

He gasps, and he can no longer control his breath. Alexander places a hand on his shoulder.

 

Then, his hands move to his own neck, and he begins to untie his cravat. Daniel watches him, raising an eyebrow.

 

“What—?”

 

“Let us try something,” Alexander starts, removing the cravat from his neck, and laying it down on the bed. He kneels to start on Daniel’s, who incredulously watches the stern set of his mouth, inches from his own.

 

Daniel sighs. “Do as you wish with me.”

 

At this, Alexander smirks. He pulls his cravat free, and continues to undress him until he is bare to the waist. Daniel sits still, impassive, allowing it, enjoying the attention.

 

“Hands behind your back,” he commands, and Daniel complies, watching Alexander take a cravat, as he moves behind him, to bind his wrists together.

 

“You can certainly tie a knot, I’ve noticed,” Daniel says, hoping that his amusement would be enough to hide his rising anticipation from Alexander. “It’s enough to make one think you had spent time at sea.” He can’t move his hands, in any direction, though he notices there is a small amount of give, reassuring.

 

Alexander is back to kneeling in front of him. “Quiet,” he whispers, and kisses him, soft. Before Daniel can respond, he has pulled back, the other cravat in his hands. He folds it lengthways, and raises it.

 

“You are safe tonight,” he murmurs as he ties it about Daniel’s head, blindfolding him.

 

And Daniel can’t see.

 

He grits his teeth. He tries to concentrate on his other senses, on Alexander’s scent, on his presence, palpable, still before him. Uncertainty begins to crowd him. He can feel his heartbeat in his neck.

 

“You are doing well,” Alexander says, unfastening Daniel’s trousers, freeing his cock, his voice tethering Daniel. But Alexander doesn’t touch him further, instead pulling away, and for a few minutes he cannot hear anything, or see anything, and his breathing comes shallow and fast.

 

He is half-hard by the time Alexander speaks again, voice coming from across the room. “I wish you could see yourself. How beautiful. I wish—”

 

He cuts himself off, and Daniel strains to hear anything at all. Abruptly, the Baron begins to move about, and he recognises the sounds of clothes being removed. He hears a shirt being folded and hung, trousers hitting the floor. His pace is leisurely, and Daniel is left to imagine the skin revealing itself, how the Baron’s thin body is left to brush against only air, and he can almost see it, along with the darkness. He wants to luxuriate in it as much as he wants Alexander’s body. He bites his lips. His cock twitches.

 

He can hear Alexander’s sharp intake of breath. Then, he hears a drawer being opened, scrabbling, the clinking of glass, a drawer being shut. Alexander’s bare footsteps, approaching him, stopping somewhere before him, kneeling.

 

He hears something, flesh, something peculiar and wet. He can taste copper in his mouth, dry. “Alexander.”

 

There is a rasp in Alexander’s breath, and Daniel can hear him bite back a curse. He can feel his presence in front of him as though he can see him, and it is heavy, and he reeks of sex and something else—roses? His blood pulses in his cock.

 

“Alexander, what are you doing. Fuck.”

 

The Baron pants out a dark laugh, together with a moan, and there is another wet noise. “Is this part of your joke?”

 

“What—? Is this a dream?”

 

“No,” Alexander says through that razorblade grin that Daniel can sense, as though it were his own, almost hysterical.

 

And then, Alexander’s hand, wet with something, trawling down his chest, leaving behind a damp trail, closing around his cock. Daniel wishes he would remove his trousers.

 

“No,” he agrees, as Alexander stands astride his lap now, one knee resting on the bed as he pumps Daniel’s cock with his hand, spreading slick over him, and Daniel gasps into it, and he can hear, he can feel the movements of his other hand as though it is touching him as well. He wishes he could see. He has never been this hard.

 

Alexander stops, rising, repositioning, his knees resting on the bed, straddling Daniel’s lap. Daniel struggles, wanting, needing to grasp his hips, his arse. Alexander’s hand comes to his shoulder, thumb arching in a reassuring stroke, breathing hot against his lips as he reaches down his other hand to his cock, grasping him, guiding him.

 

Daniel groans as Alexander lowers himself down onto the tip of his cock, grinding his hips. Alexander’s mouth moves against his. His cock brushes against his stomach. And then Alexander raises himself beyond his reach again, expelling Daniel from his warmth.

 

He purrs into his mouth. “Daniel. I didn’t hear you, earlier. Do you trust me?”

 

He moves so that Daniel’s tip barely brushes against his hole, catching against his cleft.

 

He makes a sound that could be a sob.

 

“I—I —”

 

Alexander shifts, until Daniel’s cock comes within a whisper of entering him, before he retreats again. “Yes? I can’t hear you.”

 

Daniel’s sweat sticks to him, he can feel everything stick to him, as Alexander teases him, so Daniel is very nearly inside, and Alexander thrusts his own cock into Daniel’s stomach. “Please. Yes. Please.”

 

“Yes, what? Please, what?” Alexander says, and Daniel can hear that wild smile again, can feel it as he bites down on his neck, as he licks his way to his stubbled jaw.

 

A strangled moan escapes him as Alexander grinds down again. “Oh god. Yes, I,” he gasps as Alexander bites his lips, his tongue just brushing his own. “Yes, I. I trust you.”

 

Alexander hums his approval, a noise that travels through Daniel, straight to his cock. “Good boy. And?”

 

Daniel wants to crawl out of his own skin, wants to flay himself alive if it means being closer to Alexander. He struggles, feeling Alexander’s breath catch as his cock glances against his perineum. He notices the cravat around his wrists has loosened, the silk giving way slightly. “Please. I want to be inside you.”

 

Alexander’s pants are hot in his ear, voice husky as he moves to slide their cocks together. “Hmm, do you really?”

 

“Please!” Daniel cries, “Please, let me fuck you, please.”

 

“Well, if you insist,” Alexander says, moving his hips just so, until Daniel can feel himself lined up with his hole again, and when he lowers himself this time he doesn’t stop, Daniel’s mouth falling open in a moan as he is surrounded by his tight heat, Alexander capturing his lips as they work at air.

 

Alexander pauses, fully seated. Daniel wishes he could see him, wishes he could see where they are joined, wishes he could see himself thrusting into him. “Alexander,” he growls, animalistic.

 

“Yes?” he raises himself, inch by inch, testing the angle, cock rubbing against Daniel’s front.

 

Daniel says nothing, can say nothing, as Alexander brings himself down then, and his fingers spasm, biting into Daniel’s shoulder. “Oh. Yes. Mm.”

 

Daniel’s head tips back. Alexander drives himself down against him, using him for his pleasure, consuming him, moaning into his neck, his teeth sharp. He arches his back, drawing himself up, and then there is a hand at the back of his head as Alexander shoves his face into his chest, and on instinct he begins to lick and suck at a nipple.

 

“You feel so good,” Daniel chokes out, thrusting upward as Alexander slows down, grinding his cock against his prostate, “You feel—ah,” he struggles further against the cravat, further loosened. “We should have done this earlier.”

 

Alexander growls and pushes him onto his back, both hands pressing down on his chest. “Do you know how much time I wasted—” He sheathes himself roughly, groaning, holding him down, “How much life—just thinking of your perfect cock, and how to get it in me, fuck—” His angry breath is harsh in his ear, as he uses his momentum to repeatedly slam Daniel into himself, cock trapped against Daniel’s front. “And that idiotic—corset—and then you’re so—you’re so—and now, near the end,” he cries out as Daniel’s cock hits his prostate, “How dare you, how fucking—”

 

Daniel laughs. He can’t help it. He laughs and gasps as Alexander consumes him, again and again, and he can only laugh because this is the death his life has led him to, and somehow, after everything, it is a good one.

 

Alexander sits up, his pace unrelenting. “What is it now, you mad fucking,” he whines, nails digging into Daniel’s chest, and all Daniel can feel is sweat-slick skin, Alexander’s and his own, all the wetness between them. “God. You mad beautiful bastard.”

 

The friction caused by the momentum in this position has loosened his ties, and his hands are now free behind his back. Daniel’s cock slips out, and he seizes the opportunity as Alexander is distracted with reaching to put it inside him again. He throws out his hands, and rolls them over, pinning Alexander down. He jerks the cravat around his eyes upward—it is too tight to remove in the moment—and is at last greeted with the sight of Alexander, flushed beneath him, not quite glaring at him, hair wild, chest heaving. He makes no move of protest, saying nothing, watching with that unsettling grin as Daniel manages to kick off his trousers at last.

 

Daniel seizes one of his legs, hooking the knee over his shoulder. “Baron von Brennenburg,” he says, catching his breath, somehow, somehow managing to speak at the sight before him, as he lines himself up again, “If you wanted to be fucked, you just had to say so.”

 

He watches Alexander’s eyes, full of something strange, moving over his lips, lower to the bruises on his neck. “Oh you know very well—”

 

Daniel silences him with a thrust, leaving a kiss on the inside of his knee as he gasps. The blindfold digs into his forehead. He whips it off.

 

They are bones and sinew between them, elbows and knees—and teeth, as Alexander growls at him, harder, as his hands fist the sheets. Daniel thinks his heart might stop when Alexander kicks him away, only to reclaim him with his legs about his waist, heels digging into his lower back. He throws his arms about his shoulders, and they are impossibly close.

 

“God,” Daniel pants into Alexander’s mouth, fingers tangled in his hair, arms bracketing him in below him, against him. “You’re so tight, you’re so—”

 

He picks up speed, prompted by Alexander’s nails slicing across his back, scoring wet lines.

 

Alexander is panting to the force of the thrusts. He scratches a hand up Daniel’s spine to pull his head down, kissing, biting. “How perfect you are,” he chokes out. Daniel can see his pulse. “How—”

 

And with that he dissolves into incoherence as Daniel reaches down to stroke him, and he thinks he can feel Alexander mouth “I’m sorry” into his lips, over and over, and then he comes, Daniel’s lips unrelenting in the kiss, Alexander’s fists tightening as he cries out. He struggles, cursing Daniel and everything else in several languages, but Daniel doesn’t relent, fucking him through it.

 

Then, there is a hand at his shoulder, at the base of his neck, and Daniel stalls to watch him recover, the change in his eyes. He reaches up to meet his hand there, fingers lacing as he pulls it up, to his neck, pleading as he thrusts shallow, knowing that he is not far off himself. Alexander’s smile is cruel and merciful when he finally, finally, closes his hands around Daniel’s neck, and Daniel’s laboured breath stops, and he fucks Alexander faster as the Baron squeezes his neck, fingers matching old bruises, not once taking his eyes off him, and Daniel thinks he might be sick with how full he is, how faint, the heartbeat of the cosmos in Alexander’s eyes, no breath coming to fuel his exertion, choking, and fights against the black edges appearing in his vision.

 

When he comes, he is not sure where he is, he is thrusting with abandon, when Alexander lets go, and the breath returns to him, euphoric, he will not survive, and Alexander won’t be faceless, as he pulls him down, stealing that first breath, kissing him, gentle, chaste, sacred.

 

He stays there, head resting on Alexander’s chest, still inside him, settling breath and cooling sweat. Alexander combs through his hair with his fingers. Daniel leans into it, closing his eyes, yawning. The action makes him wince, throat sore.

 

“I wonder which of us is madder.”

 

Alexander is quiet, content, and pushes him away.

 

Daniel stretches, sitting up with a wince. When he touches his back, his fingers come away smudged red. “What have you done to my back.”

 

“Why,” Alexander smirks, leaning up to kiss him, “does it hurt?”

 

Daniel responds by kissing him again, lazy, slow. “Yes.”

 

Alexander gets up, then, moving to the washbasin.

 

“Good.”

 

 

*

 

 

He does not see Alexander at the window anymore.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Alexander below him, stifling his moans in the sheets.

 

 

*

 

 

“As I said—the sun does not harm you!” Daniel cries, kissing him before alighting the carriage. The sky is overcast.

 

Alexander’s expression does not change.

 

 

*

 

 

The Zimmerman family is the last piece. With them, the work will be complete.

 

 

*

 

 

“None of it seems to matter to you.”

 

Daniel swallows down the laudanum and shrugs.

 

 

*

 

 

The Orb burns his eyes.

 

 

*

 

 

“Daniel. Please. Soon. Just a little longer.”

 

Alexander’s yellow glare is intense and mournful. He has seen it before.

 


	11. Chapter 11

And there is mercy in it.

 

And there is mercy

 

 

*

 

 

When can it be him?

 

 

*

 

 

for the orb is smooth as rock when he reaches for it,

 

raises it,

 

wishes he could bring it down on—

 

 

*

 

 

When can it be his turn? It is complete.

 

 

*

 

 

grace when he hunts her down

 

 

*

 

 

Why not him?

 

 

*

 

 

rhythmic, and scraping along endless stone walls, it is complete, it is done, in burnt-noose air

 

 

*

 

 

He did everything as it was meant to be done.

 

 

*

 

 

and there is something divine in her face, blueing—veins protruding—and he wonders if that is how he appears to Alexander as he crushes her windpipe, as she stops struggling beneath him, stops kicking, she is something that needs to be put down,

 

 

*

 

 

But where is the light?

 

 

*

 

 

burning

 

 

*

 

 

When can it be his turn?

 

 

*

 

 

Where is he?

 

 

*

 

 

All is dust—

 

 

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

It has always been him. Never the Shadow. Only him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr @chanelpirate
> 
> Playlist: https://8tracks.com/chanel_pirate/eclipse


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